Man. I can’t believe Dragon*Con is next week. And I can’t believe how much sewing I still have left. The funny thing is, I had considered making myself a set of BSG duty blues, or doing something steampunk. I thought I had time. A whole month! Surely that’s plenty of time to do another costume. But now I barely have time to finish the 3-4 costumes that I really need to get done. And I’m freaking out a bit.
Sewing the jacket for Chris’s duty blues has not been easy. But up until now, I have not had any issues that have driven me totally mad. For the past two weeks or so, I have been spending much of my time working on the sleeves. The sleeves… oh god, the sleeves. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to rip them off and sew them back on to get them lined up properly. I had one of them on pretty well, then I realized that I needed to sew the ‘suede’ patches onto the sleeves before sewing the sleeves onto the body of the jacket. So I had to use the seam ripper on it, and now, after finally getting the other sleeve on, I can’t get this one (the original one) back on. The fabric isn’t lining up and the ‘vest’ fabric keeps bunching up. I think I’m going to just have to deal with it, and keep the bunching up in the armpit where it’s less noticeable.
This was probably a really horrible pattern to use for my first sewing project. Altering it as much as I did was not the best decision, either. It doesn’t fit Chris very well, and I’m pretty upset about this. It sucks to spend so much time and money on something only to have it turn out so badly. Part of me doesn’t even want to finish it. I’m not proud of it, and I don’t really want him to wear it at DC anymore. But at the same time, I don’t want all that money and time to have been for nothing.
I’m also not having much luck with the outer ‘racerback’ tanks. I bought some shirts from Goodwill to use as fabric, and it’s been a pain trying to create my own pattern. I’ve gone through four shirts and am now working on #5. Luckily this one may actually turn out okay.
Here’s what I have left to do:
- Finish sewing on jacket sleeves
- Put last few buttons on jacket and pants
- Hem pants
- Make outer tanks
- Redo belt loops on my BDU pants
- Buy BDU pants for Chris and put on belt loops
- Make the belts
- Decorate the corset/top for my other costume (it’s a secret!) and create accessories
Can I get all of this done before next Thursday?! We shall see…
On top of all this stress, I’ve had to deal with getting my hair colored. I decided to go blonde for my Starbuck costume, rather than just buying a wig. I went in last Friday and instead of dyeing my hair blonde, they gave me blonde highlights. So I went back in on Saturday, and they put in more highlights. And though it looks a lot better than it did on Friday, it’s not as blonde as I’d wanted. After 4+ hours of my time and $200 (plus tips). To make a long story short, I went in today and spoke with the salon owner, hoping she’d do more highlights as a courtesy; but after consulting with her and another stylist, I decided not to get any more color, as they thought my hair was already really blonde and more color wouldn’t make much difference. The back is a bit darker than I’d like, but I’ll live with it. I’m getting it cut tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll be happier with it then.
Suffice it to say, I’ve not been a happy camper this week. My costumes are not turning out well, and the hair issue was stressing me out (I’m not a confrontational person and didn’t know how to handle the situation). But things are going a bit more smoothly today, thankfully.